Finding Staff

There are a number of ways of attracting, finding and recruiting staff, without necessarily having to pay a fortune to do so.

Here are some of our Top Tips to cost effective recruitment:

Incentivise current staff with a referral reward scheme.

Often overlooked as a method of organic expansion, a staff referral scheme can be a great way to encourage your existing staff to recruit suitable friends and colleagues. Careful handling is needed however, to ensure that you do not compromise quality of recruits for someone "doing their mate a favour!"

Try to offer an incentive that is either results based or longevity based in order to encourage staff to take a responsible attitude for the applicants that they recommend. (For example offer a reward scheme that pays out once the employee has... (hit 3 targets, or been in the role for 6 months.)

In addition, do not be tempted to skip the normal interview and recruitment protocols just because the candidate has been recommended.

Advertise the vacancy via your website.

Many larger companies take advantage of their website as a recruitment vehicle by adding a "Careers" page but this can be just as effective for smaller companies if you have a sufficient volume of local web traffic. You may even come up in jobseeker's web searches if your industry is fairly specific and you include a detailed description of the role online with relevant keywords in place.

Employees within certain competitive industries habitually check out their competitors websites, so you may even successfully recruit some employees from the competition if the opportunity sounds appealing enough!

A friendly and approachable "About Us" section and clear company ethos may also add to the appeal of working for your business.

Advertise for FREE on Universal Jobmatch

Universal Jobmatch is provided by the Government and available UK wide for employers to advertise any job positions they may have available for FREE. Job applicants do not have to register in order to search for jobs so the site is well used and freely accessible to job seekers.

Employers posting a job can also use the facility to find suitable jobseeker applicants by searching for CV matches of registered candidates on their database. Jobseekers will be matched against their suitability to the job title of your job and any skills/keywords you described when creating your job posting. The matching system also factors in associated skills or job titles, recently used skills and location.

To increase responses to your job posting, ensure that you edit the job description to include additional keywords that may be used by jobseekers in their job searches and complete as many fields as possible so that job seekers have more criteria to consider.